50th RBC Heritage features first S.C. title defender

The stars seem to have aligned to make a Lowcountry favorite all the more exciting at this year’s RBC Heritage, the 50th annual event taking place at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island.

Adding to the four days of golf in the state’s only PGA Tour event, this will mark the first time a South Carolina native — Wesley Bryan — gets the opportunity to hit a ceremonial ball into Calibogue Sound to kick off the tournament week and begin his title defense.

Making this year’s tournament all the more special is that another recognizable South Carolina native could challenge Bryan’s title defense and become the second South Carolinian to earn a tartan jacket: Dustin Johnson.

It was revealed in February that the No. 1-ranked player in the world, who is fifth all time in PGA Tour earnings, would make his first start at the Heritage since 2009.

Johnson was born in Columbia and attended Coastal Carolina.

“It just adds to the history; for us to have Wesley Bryan as the defending champion and having been the only South Carolinian to ever have won this event, his dad having played in the event, and then you take it a step further the No. 1 player in the world currently, he’s from Columbia, and he’s playing, we couldn’t have scripted it any better,” tournament director Steve Wilmot.

“People might’ve looked last year at our field and wished so and so, or he had won, but it was Wesley Bryan, it was meant to be. It was a USC grad, played as a Gamecock, and you’ve got D.J. (Johnson) here having gone to Coastal Carolina, it just adds to the excitement of the event.”

Johnson has 17 tour wins under his belt, including the 2016 U.S. Open, and should draw a nice crowd in his return. He exuded confidence in his surprise appearance at the tournament’s media day, saying that Harbour Town’s narrow and tight fairways “didn’t matter” as long as he’s “playing well.”